and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber who wish to vote or who wish to change their vote? if not, the yeas are 100, the noes are zero. and the amendment is agreed to. mr. leahy: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: move to reconsider. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. mr. leahy: move to reconsider. a senator: move to lay it on the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: madam president, the

distinguished senator from alaska -- mr. leahy: madam president, the distinguished senator from alaska, senator murkowski, has filed amendment 11, a technical fix to ensure that vawa's tribal provisions properly apply in alaska. i now offer the amendment on her behalf. i support this amendment and i ask it be added to the bill. the presiding officer: without objection, the clerk will report the amendment. the clerk: the senator from vermont, mr. leahy, for ms. murkowski, proposes an amendment numbered 11. beginning on page 186, strike line 5 and all that follows. mr. leahy: i ask that further reading be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. there will now be two minutes of debate equally divided. mr. leahy: i yield back all time. the presiding officer: without objection.

the question is on the amendment. is there any further debate? hearing none, all those in favor say aye. all those opposed say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the amendment is agreed to. under the previous order, there will be two minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote in relation to amendment number 15, offered by the senator from oklahoma, mr. coburn. mr. coburn: could we have order, madam president. the presiding officer: the senate shall come to order. mr. coburn coburn: this is an at that follows g.a.o. recommendations with which the justice department agreed in terms of an audit on the duplication within their program. as a matter of fact, i have the data where judiciary -- the justice department actually

concurred with the g.a.o. on it. the purpose of the amendment is to eliminate the backlog in terms of d.n.a. testing, both in terms of rape kits and cotas. the cornyn amendment improved the bill but does not direct the money that is necessary. it's a small percentage, less than 2% over 10 years, out of that bill, less than 2% of one year's spending. we spend $40 million per ten years on these grants and what we're asking for is .4% to help solve the backlog on all the d.n.a. cases. mr. leahy: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: madam president, i think the reason this amendment is opposed by law enforcement, the national association of police organizations, the national task force to end sexual and domestic violence against women is because the g.a.o.d made no such finding. the amendment states the g.a.o. identified $3.9 billion in

duplicative grant programs. well, of course, the total amount of grants awarded the justice department, total, were only $3.6 billion. you can't get $3.9 billion in duplication out of $3.6 billion. the g.a.o. report did not actually conclude there's duplication. they did not recommend funding cuts. they did not recommend the $780 million cut this amendment would require. but this amendment would gut key programs to help victims of rape and domestic violence. i think that we ought, as i've said over and over again, we ought to support the victims of rape and domestic violence and i oppose this amendment. i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any other senators wishing to vote or wishing to change their vote? hearing none, on coburn amendment number 15, the ayes are 46 and the nays are 53. the amendment is not agreed to. mr. leahy: madam president, i move to reconsider. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: madam president, i have six unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. i ask unanimous consent these requests be agreed to and the requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. under the previous order, the under the previous order, the

i say this now of an glossing over presidents. we decided that some people are bald eagles and they all have to be treated as if they are symbols of the country. what that means though is that you have a -- you have a smoothing over of the rough

edges and a feeling among of the modern presidents that they have a right to a certain veneration and that will be located in the presidential library. and even if they are gone, their children in some cases, and their former allies, the lieutenants who live longer than presidents because they are younger the continue this. in fact in many ways they are even more ferociously committed to the legacy model me because this but because the field man is gone and they want to show their loyalty. the problem is what does the government do because it is responsible for these when you have a flawed president. facebook cofounder chris hughes recently discussed digital journalism and trends in

social media. he's the publisher and editor-in-chief at the new republicans book about the evolution of the digital age and how media organizations can better engage online consumers. this is hosted by the harvard can be school on the press, politics and public policy. >> hello. i'm alex jones, director of the shorenstein center here at the kennedy school of government at harvard and we are glad to have you all with us today. it is my particular pleasure to welcome chris hughes to the ranks of the world which he may be a digital god but because of the new republic he's entered a world that is also one stooped in tradition. today's interview and conversation is going to be recorded by c-span, so i would

ask you when you come down to ask questions later, those of you that interested come to these mics. the hash tag if you are falling on trotter is -- following on twitter is chrishughes. i don't need to introduce cress much to this group. obviously she is someone from hickory north carolina that got himself into harvard and by a fortuitous circumstances managed to be the roommate of mark zuckerburg and great importance in the creation of facebook. this happened in his sophomore year and he told me just a moment ago he was taking five classes in both semester's while the was going on and still managed to graduate with magna a couple of years later. facebook of course is something that has changed the world.

mark zuckerberg was the fourth for the fifth as i am a stand. but the thing is chris hughes did something counterintuitive. first of all, he didn't leave harvard. he finished as a magna. he then went to work for fi -- work for facebook and left in order to work for the barack obama campaign. that is something that was anything but short and was consistent with the kind of things chris hughes has been talking about which is trying to live a life would have a genuine impact, a direct positive impact on delighting hour the words that you have yours. less than a year ago, he purchased dominant control of a publication in the new republic that was also in failing health

and has made a awful lot of dust and caused a lot of interest because he was not only publisher and editor-in-chief but he was actively engaged reshaping it and had career ambitions to make the new republic something that would be among the most influential and the most important idea magazine in the country. he is serious about high-quality journalism. that is the thing that he talks about again, but his focus is not just about digital technologies. he has taken this venerable institution and profession, journalism, and is looking at them informed by his deep knowledge of digital technology in the digital world, but also with a different set of values

than are more traditional. it is my great pleasure, chris, to welcome you here. the subject is the changing media landscape, news in the age of social media. we are glad to have you. [applause] >> thank you. thank you. thank you for having me. it is particularly nice to be back across the street from the kirkland house which is where we started facebook actually nine years ago yesterday. it's the anniversary, february 4th of 2004 is when we opened it up to a few dozen people at harvard and the next morning we woke up and there were hundreds of people on it already. so it's nice to be back in cambridge particularly right now. so i thought i could talk a little bit for maybe 15 minutes or so to give you some context on what i'm doing, what we are doing at the new republic and talk about how we sort of see the digital media landscape in 2013 and then open up for

questions and hopefully get a good dialogue the first question that people ask me all the time is flying in the world what someone like you buy this 100-year-old media institution like the new republic in an age where the conventional wisdom is print design, serious journalism is under threat, why would you be courageous to take this on? it's got to be on a vanity project or i've got to have some political ax to grind or some ulterior motive. other people just look at me like i am crazy. but the truth is that i thought of the new republic because i believe in the power of great writing to shape how we see the world, and that sounds incredibly idealistic, and it

is, but i'm not ashamed of it and i think the people that we have at the new republican working on this project now are a pretty idealistic group. one of the things we are following in the foot stuffed in the new republic of hundred years ago if you go back and looked out what they were riding in 1914 when the magazine was starting they were a pretty idealistic group. there was starting a magazine in a time of enormous transition just as though war was breaking out in europe. and they brought a sense of hopefulness and idealism to the project. the founding editor of the magazine was quoted as saying that he saw its purpose to be an insurrection in the realms of the readers convictions. and that is one of my favorite quotes from the archive because a century later - that we are falling in the stamp footsteps

-- same footsteps. what does that mean? the 21st century is different than the environment started 100 years ago but the editorial focus is to challenge our readers assumptions. from one perspective why wouldn't all media do that? and i think particularly in 2013 in the environment where it does not. on the women of the spectrum when i call the newspapers used to be the dominant news delivery method. it's now "the new york times" also the huffingtonpost.com, the daily beast. it gives you information about what happened jester date. it tends to be hit line driven cut it tends to be what you read at 9 a.m..

it's part of my media every day and part of everyone's media digest. on the other end of the spectrum it is a starkly -- historic the their fan magazines and it's been largely about storytelling wedding of things like "the new york times" magazine or the new yorker or other relief venerable new yorker books, other really venerable publications which take time to read and context and it pretty educated audience. for us we are trying to position ourselves in the space in between the two. the goal at the new republic is to do great writing, the type that is as good if not better than some of the magazines that have made their names in great riding but to do it about

important and timely topics that the readers want to know about. there is a level of urgency to the type of journalism that we want to do. and for every single piece that we publish editorially we ask ourselves why is this important? we don't want to just tell stories coming and we don't think that most sort of modern conservatives of news on it for the sake of stories, the great riding is an important entrée in but the news has to be, it has to be media, it has to be about something that's important in that matters drift on quantitative and qualitative research and we found that this is what the readers want today they want great writing. they want an entree into big ideas but they want it to be highly relevant to the topics that are top of mind.

as a part of our strategic priority though, it's not just content that is enough for us. one of the things that i want the new republic to do, and i think the we started doing this in the new ones in the past couple of weeks is to build the type of technology that adapts to help consumers are reading and consuming the content today. and this is going to be a constant ongoing project. it's not like we do it once and then we are all done simply because how many devices. how many different ways of consuming content there are in 2013. but we have tried to get out to help people are reading. what does that mean? while we still have a print edition, a vast of the to majority of people publish first. we have to million monthly coming and even before we've redesigned web site, over 20% of the folks were coming to us from mobile devices.

as we have built now in html 5 project without giving out a little bit too much is responsive to the browser that you are using. so we are using the same content management systems and the same things on the back end but when a reader goes to let me know if you are on your iphone or android device or ipad or computer and immediately change screen resolutions and size to adapt to that experience. we have also added a lot of small features which some of them came out of what we felt we wanted and some of it came out of reading the conversations and research that we did. we also have interested thinking so if you start reading a 2,000 word peace in your computer at lunch, you can pick back where you left off at your home or if you start reading something over the weekend and you want to read it back at work you know where you were, you have a book market

we can take you right back to it. we have audio versions of all of our content, so again if you are commuting on a treadmill or want to play it in the background while you are at your desk, you can listen to it and have it read to you as an ipad app. from that perspective we are not just writing content, putting it on the web site and then calling it a day. we are writing the content, putting it on the web site, trying to understand and to go to the readers where they are reading it and then importantly having the editorial staff continue to engage in the conversations that are happening after the content is originally published. on the new website we have the margin area which is a couple purposes. one is you can do footnotes and endnotes which a lot of our writers have lots of ideas that don't make it into the text on how the pieces written so they can put the footnotes and things

and have little comments in the margin area. but it's also a place we can continue to carry it the social conversations that are happening after the peace is published. the old model would be, it would have been to write a piece and file with a certain time. it comes out the next day and you are done. from my perspective now, you write a piece and post it on the web but not only are the journalists responsible for promoting it but they are also responsible for engaging in a dialogue for twitter and facebook people who hate it and people who love it and we want to treat those conversations, too said that, you know, if we have a piece on jon stewrt that is in the marchant area as long as a comment someone saying it is completely wrong. you missed the whole point here. which is an important dynamic because the conversation that

continues after the piece is where i think a lot of the impact can happen. so, and all of this, there are two major of junction -- notte objections, but questions about our work and whether or not it can be successful in trying to take this serious journalism and adapting it to the age. the first is that in the age of twitter and facebook are people really seriously interested in reading quality journalism? this is one of my favorite questions because i feel like my own background in the world of the social media picks up against the world of serious journalism all the time, and what i say and what we see in our data is that social media is not actually competing longer pieces or, it doesn't

necessarily need to be longer but more substantive quality journalism. in fact more often than not, it's enabling them to have been increasingly. in the new republic before the social media, we would have had to have relied on just our brand to have people come in and tight newrepublic.com into their browser or google and as much as bookmarking comes to the home page, it is just not realistic, whereas the social media because we enable the people that are reading our stuff to share it and to attract a larger and larger following, it means we have been able to bring in a lot younger demographic, young readers that haven't known the brand before but who are excited and are interested in reading at ..

>> one of my favorite studies to cite because it's so mind blowing came out in the fall. and they specifically were looking at reading amongst people who were 16-30. and what they found was that people in that age demographic were actually reading as many if not slightly more statistically, at least as many books as they had in the past. so reading of books was not down amongst that demographic. however, you were just as likely to have read it on your mobile phone as you were on print. there's a little wrinkle there.

i think print may have been a little higher. but the mobile phone was higher than an ipad, higher than any type of tablet and higher than any of the other methods that, you know, you would assume that people are moving to for e-books which i thought, it's just a really fascinating, it's a fascinating social trend, but it's also something that reminds me how quickly the digital world is moving, that there are, there's a whole swath of people who are reading full-on books on their phones while they're waiting in line or in bed or wherever they may be. and that's a key way they're consuming this long form type of content. and yet they're consuming it at the same rates they have historically. so the run that one of the things we've really done is emphasize this mobile approach, all these things, to make it as easy as possible to read on a phone. even though it seems counterspew

tiff, the evidence -- counterintuitive, the evidence is showing that there are more and more interested. the second point is around our ability to monetize and to, um, to be a successful business. and on this one i wish i could even pretended that we had all the -- pretended that we had all the answers. we have some hypotheses that we're testing, but, um, it's going to take only time to know if our hypotheses are even right. and i think it requires a certain amount of patience on these questions. the way that we're thinking about it or that i think about it in particular is outside of a few highly professionalized verticals, particularly things like finance or if some cases sports or some very clear verticals, people are not generally willing to pay for access to content in a digital,

in a digital environment. but i think they are interested in supporting brands that they believe in, and i think that they're interested and still willing to pay for experiences. um, and i think experiences are qualitatively different than access. so to be a little bit more precise about this, i think the old model used to be you give -- at least the old model used to be you give us $5, and we give you 20 issues of print. and that worked for a very long time, and that worked until the web and all the business models were disrupted. now our model is you give us $35, and you get print. but then you also get what we call our experiencial products. in the digital column, it's all the things i was talking about before; audio, digital premium, unlimited access, commenting, and there's several other things in that list. and then you get access to

subscriber-only events which, um, we are doing at least once a month in major cities and also in some secondary markets like, you know, ann arbor or austin or places where there's a lot of people who are interested in the type of journalism that we do. whether or not the experiencial products will be enough is an open question, but it's certainly part of a trend where from an editorial perspective the journalists are not just researching and writing, they're researching, writing, promoting, engaging in dialogue and then also being important participants in events and interacting with their readers. i think other brands in our field, um, have moved on to, to cafés, to retail, i mean, particularly monocl. i think upwards of 20% of their revenue comes from their retail, their stores which they have a

dozen, couple dozen of across the world. and there's, you know, still other ideas. i think that, i think that from my perspective, the era of when there were sizable profits in this industry is over. i think it was a pretty fast one in the second part of the 20th century. and we're now having to adapt to a different kind of business. it's a double bottom line business. i think that's the right way to think about it. we have a social mission which is important to the world at the same time as we have a profit mission. but the idea that we're going to, you know, find some business model which is going to, um, return us to the point of prosperity that was the case 20 or 30 years ago in this industry, i think, is wishful thinking. on advertising, just to say a word about that too. i think that the advertising market is still very slowly changing and shifting. and it's a challenge for us,

it's a challenge for everyone else that, um, i think is in our field. one of my -- those things that i'm focused on the most is trying to help advertisers, um, focus on real, viable metrics and not just sort of the top line, superficial ones that i think most people ask about. things like page views or even unique visitors don't necessarily tell you anything about how the level of engagement or how good a digital or web product is at retention. i mean, if you want to boost page views or you want to boost unique users, you can test headlines all day long, and you can get lots of people to click on a headline, and they can count as a unique user. but whether or not your journalism is quality from an advertiser's perspective, whether or not a person is lingering there, bear acting with -- interacting with an advertiser's content, none of these questions are asked by these top line metrics.

so it's, you know, i personally have started to engage with a lot of the advertising community a bit more over the past few months, and it's clear to me that there are a lot of people who are thinking creatively about new solutions, but more often than not they're custom solutions that are built per brand, per advertiser, and it takes time for them -- not just the new republic, to understand how these different products exist, what the or interactions are like and how they can monetize them and use them to their advantage in a meaningful way. um, all of these ideas, the last thing i'll say before opening up for questions is one of the key things that we are trying to do at the new republic which i think has very much been in the dna of silicon valley for a very long time but not so much in this industry is take a highly experimental approach. you know, in silicon valley the

expectation for a venture capitalist is that he or he will invest in ten different companies and, hopefully, one of them will be a great success, two of them will be okay, and it's more likely than not that accept of them will fail. but -- that seven of them will fail. but that's okay. for us we're trying lots of different ideas, and i don't expect any one of these things from a it can logical perspective or even from a business perspective to be some silver bullet or for us to discover, you know, the cure to all of our ills. but what i do know is that we have to create a culture inside of our company, and i think this is the same thing for giants like "the new york times" or, um, or small sort of emerging blogs. you have to create a culture where there's a high amount of experimentationing, where we're really honest about what's working and what's not working thus far and where we continue to experiment with new ideas to

see what works and see what doesn't. it's, it's clear to me that that's not something that's necessarily been part of the dna or part of the culture of the world of journalism for a long time. but i think there are a lot of brands and a lot of people out there that are trying to do that increasingly so, and i think as long as that continues to be the case, it gives, it gives me a lot of optimism about not only the state of what we're doing, but the state of the industry in the future. >> great. chris, i'd like to -- chris and i'll have a conversation for just a few minutes, and then we'll open it up to you. on the business side first, one of the things that people find unpleasant in buying enterprises that are losing money is continuing to lose money. [laughter] are you, do you have a tolerance for, basically, funding losses for a while? i mean, this is, this is -- you have gotten, you've spent money. >> what's the definition of "a while"?

[laughter] >> have you thought about that, or are you just sort of going to let that take care of itself, or is it something you've actually given thought to? >> no. i spend the majority of my time on the business and on -- >> you want it to be profitable. but does it have to be profitablesome. profitablesome -- profitable? >> i think it should be profitable, and i think it's our challenge to prove to ourselves and to the world that we can find a profitable model. and when i say profitable, i'm not saying that, you know, we're going to be making a lot of money hand over fist. clearly, i'm in this for, well, i don't know if it's clear or not, i'm in this for the journalism, not to make a lot of money for it myself. so profitability is, to me, synonymous with sustainability. once we get the company to a point where the journalism, there's enough of a market who wants and who demands our products and is willing to pay for it, then the company can go much longer, can outlast me for a long time.

the question is how long is it going to take us to get there. and i think that, excuse me, there's no way that we could get there without serious investments. probably losses this year and next year. moving forward to 2015 -- >> it's more of a macabre version of -- if you recall, it was one dollar more or one pound metropolitan he spent. and -- more than he spent. i mean, that's a different standard and one that will not be as hard. because in the business of journalism, the business of journalism the standard for profitability is significantly more than that in many, many, many places including, you know, local newspapers and things like that. that's going to be easier, and that's good as far as those of us who care about the journalism is concerned. i want to talk to you about the

journalism, now, if i may for a moment. what kind of a journalistic enterprise do you want the new republic to be? do you want it to be a place where the reporting is considered to be very strong, where the, where the analysis and the opinion writing is very strong? i mean, i how do you sort of weigh those and how do you imagine the mix at the new republic of that kind of thing? >> right. yeah. i mean, historically the new republic had a lot of opinion journalism. and if you think, i mean, if you think before the internet in particular, the role of opinion journalisms was incredibly important. i mean, if you were someone who was trying to shape public policy debate or even if you were just trying to get your own opinion out there so it was part of the mix and a conversation in washington or new york or hollywood, i mean, whatever field you were in, you had to go to a few, a handful of print

publications and have it be included in those pages. it sounds like a cliche, but i think it's worthwhile to remember because it is so different than the model and the universe that we live in now. not only could you go, if you have an opinion, you can go blog about it, but whether you have your own blog or somebody else would be happy to, um, will be happy to post it for you, but you can also go to twitter, you have all of these outlets for people to share their opinions now. so there's plenty of opinion. the shift that we're trying to make from an editorial perspective is we're going to continue to do some opinion journalism so we can be part of the debate, but where i think that the market demand is and what people really want is the type of journalism that is more reported, that is more contextual, that is, um, sort of deeper journalism that is surfacing new points or exposing new ideas than it is necessarily

just sharing another sort of opinion about what's happening in the world. that's where i think the hole is in the marketplace. >> one of the things that i've read in preparing to have this conversation with you about your experience as the new editor-in-chief at the new republic is that you stopped a magazine cover because you found it to be -- i mean, i don't think that's a small thing. i'd really like to know how your thinking was and how you -- what was at stake as far as you were concerned? what were you trying to do? >> that was an easy one. we don't call people names. that's, you know, i think we can have intelligence debate about -- intelligent debate about a lot of different topic, and we can call people out. but calling people out is different than calling people names. so some of the cover lines -- i bought the magazine on a thursday, and this was like the next week. literally, i didn't i didn't kne the printer was. so it sounds quite, it sounds quite dramatic. it was actually more like i got

sent a cover, and i was like we need to change the that word. by that point it was, apparently, already at the press, which i didn't know. >> do you realize it's going to cost you x in order to do this, i would imagine. >> well, fortunately or unfortunately because the new republic's circulation network is not as large as some of the others -- [laughter] the cost was not, wasn't significant at all. so, but it is -- i but, i mean -- >> well, tell them what the issue was. >> because it is, i think it's important to -- there's lots of places on the internet where, you know, you can call people names. there's not that many places on the internet where you can call people out in a substantive, thoughtful way. of course, you know, of course people do it, but i think that from a brand perspective we have to do reported journalism, and we have to do the type of opinion journalism that's well documented, that's careful and well thought out.

and if you put a word in a headline that calls somebody a nut or a baby or whatever that seems like a small thing, you immediately turn them off. and if you're trying to get the other side to listen or if you're trying to actually engage in a debate, you know, the first thing you maybe should not do is call them a name. [laughter] is so, i mean, if there is some difference there historically, then it's one that, you know, i mean, i think it's an important point -- >> well, the thing that's really interesting is as i recall it was the headline referred to wall street guys as cry babies? was that the -- and you found that, you changed it. what did they change it to, by the way? >> i don't even remember. >> whiners? [laughter] >> i honestly don't remember. it was clear -- i mean, the point of the story, it was a great place. one of our reporters, alec mcgillis, wrote a piece on why so many people on wall street

were so upset about the administration and a lot of the policies of barack obama, because you could argue that, you know, the administration was much more sensitive to wall street than it was to main street in the course of the first term. it was incredibly well reported. alec could talk to all of these hedge fund guys, and the question is, you know, you sort of want to call them out and force them to think about whether or not their opinions are actually reasonable. but you're not going to be able to do that if the first thing they see is you're calling them a cry baby. >> but that edge is very much part of the culture of the web now, and it's a part of the culture or especially at magazine journalism and coffers and so forth. -- covers and so forth. they're calculated to be provocative, to cause defense, to a degree. they're calculated mainly to get people to read them, to make them feel -- and the values of the web journalistly are for that -- journalistically are for the edge far more than something

that would be considered fair. >> if you're using uniques as your metric, which is what most companies do, then you certainly want to write things that are provocative, that are enraging, that are -- because it works on both sides. it gets the people who agree with it, you know, all amped up, and they want to read it. and then it really, it angers the other side. so if that's the, if that's the goal, then i think a lot of the journalism on the web does do that. but i also feel like there's a lot of people like myself who when it comes to opinion journalism, i feel like i got plenty of it. i don't need any more. everybody's got an opinion. i love twitter, and i love a lot of the people that i read, but i've got plenty of different opinions and perspectives. what i find that i crave and what we found in a lot of the conversations through research that we've done is that people want news sources that are thought-provoking, relatively unbiased but -- in our category.

i'm not talking about all different types of news consumers. in the category of smart, educated, politically savvy people, they want unbiased, highly-reported coverage more so than they just want opinions. >> let me advise those of you who have questions for chris to come and line up at these two microphones. so far -- sure. >> maybe just to clarify that last point, i do think it's really important that we're focused on a relatively specific group of people. i mean, it's college-sected folks who -- educated folks who follow the news fairly closely and are politically savvy but not necessarily obsessed. they want to know about film and literature and social movements but who are also interested in politics. and i think that level of focus enables us to have that perspective in a doesn't way than if we were running a television network or if we were trying to, you know, focusing on

a larger, larger, more diverse demographic can. >> chris, i wonder if you could address some of the opportunities you see on the horizon in terms of engaging new republic audiences whether it's the next iteration of crowd sourcing or whatever it is, whatever ways you see to engage the audience in ways that intersect with the two double lines that you describe, that have impact both on your social consequence as well as your sustainability. but that begins with ways to engage them in the journalism. >> i think, i mean, what we're trying to do from an editorial perspective is go go to the people -- go to our readers rather than necessarily create new products that ask them to come to us. and so being very much engaged with the conversations particularly on twitter and to some extent on facebook is a really important strategic priority for what we're doing. we're also, um, doing and

experimenting with ideas around trying to use technology to, um, really engage in those dialogues in a way that hasn't been possible. so something like google hangout which is, we use google hangout a lot because we have about 25 folks in new york and 30 people on staff in washington, and we have big tvs in both of the conference rooms, and we have them connected with google hangout which sounds silly, but it means that you can literally just go into a conference room, and this person goes into the conference room, and you can have -- maybe it's not a face-to-face conversation, but it's the next best thing. but we've had this culture now of people using google hangout all the time, and one of the ideas we've just been talking about in the past week or two is what if our reporters were engaging in a dialogue, it could be one of our reporters in michigan or one in washington on google hangout with perhaps some of the experts that she or he talked to with some of the people who are reading it who

had good criticisms of it. i mean, there's opportunities there that will that work? will people want that? i don't know. but that's one of the things when i talk about a culture of experimentation, i really want us to try to see if it, to see if it makes sense or to see if it doesn't. if it doesn't, then -- you know, the social media environment is the place where we have to go first to engage. while we're experimenting with all these things, what we know is important is engaging on twitter, and to some extent, facebook constantly whether it's reporters, the brand, everybody. >> our next questioner is a colleague who i have not seen in a long time, michael, who yaw may or may not know. if you do know, i suspect he'll be writing for the new republic. [laughter] >> i do. >> michael. >> just to say, to declare an interest, i have written for the new republic for many years, and i'm very enthusiastic about what you're proposing to do. seems really good to me. the one question i had was about the association with the new

republic with liberalism. for the better part of a century, when people think about the new republic, they think about it as a liberal magazine. i'm just wondering what that mission means to you and how it will change under your leadership. >> i think that what i don't want is for the new republic as an institution to have an editorial line where we get in the business of hiring or not hiring people because they agree or disagree with a particular viewpoint. what i do want is for us to practice the type of journalism which doesn't necessarily pretended to be, where the journalist pretend to have certain judgments. in the media today there's still this, particularly with newspapers is he said this, she said that, and, you know, let the reader decide. with the type of journalism that we do, our reporters -- what's

great about them is that they engage, they learn, and they have an assessment and, hopefully, they include that point of view in that assessment in their piece. um, you know, the vast majority of our readers and writers are generally liberal folks. i'm pretty sure most if not all of them voted for obama. so i'm not, you know, i think they share a similar world view as our readers. but, you know, i certainly didn't buy the magazine to expand a liberal outlet, you know? i bought it for the type of journalism that we can do inside it. which, you know, different people could say different things about how that intersects with the new republic historically. we did some quantitative research around this question, do you think the new -- do you know the new relick? yes. do you think that it's liberal or conservative? 24% of people said conservative and 22% said liberal.

[laughter] you know, and now as an owner of the magazine, it's really interesting when you, in washington or new york because a lot of folks will say, well, you know, they used to support, the editorial board supported the iraq war, they supported this or took a hard line on that, and it's got to be -- it's very conservative. other people will have the opposite viewpoint. and what i always end up saying is, um, you know, we don't have a party line anymore. we of of a lot of -- we have a lot of reporters who have of a lot of different opinions and, hopefully, each one of them can help -- some of them you'll love, some of them you'll hate, but each one of them will change the way you think about the world around them. >> are you going to write a column or have an editorial voice in explicit ways? >> i'll probably write some. no, i mean, i'm spending most of my time on the business stuff. i definitely will write, but i think it's also important in an initial period for me to be very clear that i didn't, you know, i didn't buy the new republic and i'm not here to amplify my own

voice or my own editorial positions. i did it to empower the people who do this for a living, to do it -- >> if you would identify yourselves please. >> i'm june ehrlich, i'm the editor-in-chief of the harvard view in latin america, and i also teach journalism. you're doing an amazing job of trying to blend two journalistic cultures. i know the new republic going back many years. many of my students, i find, know the new republic through the movie "shattered glass." and which depicted, for those of you who don't know, a major breach of journalism ethics in which a journalist was making things up. in the internet culture, there's much more of a culture of like passing things on and repeating

things, and in the print culture and what "the new york times," the new republic and many other traditional magazines defend is what the new republic defended by firing glass is truth. but i was wondering as you take over this magazine what does your fact-checking process look like, and are you writing a new code of ethics? and in that code of ethics, how are you taking into account that you're trying to breach these two cultures? >> yeah. fact-checking is incredibly important to what we do can for two reasons. one, because, you know, whatever we're publishing we want to make sure any facts that we're citing are right because i think it's ethical, and it's what it means to have a sense of integrity as a publication. but it's also really incredibly important for us as a company, for our brand.

people have to, one of the key differences between us and a lot of the other places where you can find content on the web is that we do have a brand. we do have nearly a 100-year history, and people have to be able to to trust that the facts are right. clearly, you know, whether it's with stephen glass or a couple other episodes, you know, there have been lapses at the new republic historically, and i think as a result there's an even more, people are even more on their toes now culturally to insure that that doesn't happen anymore. we have a pretty robust reporter/researcher program, and they along with other folks on staff and along with reporters themselves are fact checking their work. several times through. so it's important because of the history and because it's the right thing, but it's also important for us as a brand because we have to have people trust us. >> does that glass, stephen glass episode still linger in

the rafters? i know jason blair does at "the new york times." >> um -- >> i don't mean that -- just mindful of something. >> yeah. i think people are more mindful of the integrity of their journalism than -- although, you know, most of the reporters we hire bring such a sense of integrity to it anyway, i mean, um -- but, you know, because of that episode i think people are more aware of it. i mean, it, you know, i know it from talking with some folks who were there, um, at the time and also from the film and just watching on. i mean, it was an incredibly, it was not -- >> bad luck for it to be turned into a good movie. >> i know. [laughter] >> teaching journalism ethics now, by the way? >> i didn't want. >> i'm a student of the kennedy school. do you have any plans on expanding beyond u.s., for instance, to europe?

[inaudible] hasn't been very successful expanding to many european countries. thank you. >> yeah. we're looking -- international coverage is really interesting. i think that we're trying every single print issue of the magazine at least a couple times a week to always have international content be in the mix. so we've had reported pieces from venezuela, or we had someone who was embedded in the afghanistan. we ran a piece in the last two issues ago on that. so it's really important. the question for us from just a business standpoint is, um, the economics of it. more often than not it works for us, it works best for us to work with freelance reporters or who are contributing for us and luke, who i just mentioned contributes for "the new york times" as well, and so we can get the content, we can get the ideas in the magazine we don't have, you know, a bureau in

paris or kabul or something, something like that. so, but the international stuff, i think, is key to having a fully mature, broad magazine of the future. >> are you going to make it a weekly again? >> i don't think so. no. we don't have any plans to. i mean, print -- >> it's a biweekly now, used to be weekly. >> yeah. it was historically a weekly. previous ownership brought it down to a biweekly. when i first bought the magazine, i was a little skeptical of the biweekly format for a few different reasons, but in print i've really come around to it. i mean, it is, it's up enough that -- it's often enough that we can be responsive to the news cycle, and if we need to tear up a cover or whatever a day before, we can. but it's, it's also, it's slow enough that we don't -- not every single week, i mean, are we producing another magazine. so we're able to keep the content relatively high.

strategically the way we think about it internally is, again, we have a lot more people reading our content on the web, on their phones, on the their ipads than we necessarily do for the print product. print's still important to us from an economics perspective. we make money off of print. so it's not going to go anywhere. but we really try to keep everybody, you know, aware of the fact that people are coming to the new republic each day a lot of the time not just waiting every two weeks to pick up the next -- >> and how are you going to feed that beast? >> we've invested a lot of capital into digital-only content. you know, we have, we have people who are -- we had a reporter go to the consumer electronics show two weeks ago, and she wrote a 5,000-word web-only piece which was absolutely fantastic looking at, you know, the culture of ces in las vegas and the role of women and theory and philosophy and

some of the people that she met. and it was, it was a really great piece. but, you know, it'll never appear in print. um, it's just on the web. >> yes. >> hi. i'm carly, i'm a student here at the kennedy school. you mentioned the idea of moving away from uniques as a metric and maybe a way to create a more financially sustainable system for online for advertising and things. i'm wondering if you could elaborate on that and talk about what that actually would look like and if there's any organizations out there using different models for measurement. >> um, i think that it's not that i think that uniques aren't important, i just think we place way too much emphasis on them. i think that the amount of time spent on the site or reading a piece is really, really important. we use, we use a few different analytics tools, but one of them we use is something called chart beat which enables us to not

only see how many people are reading, it's data in the aggregate, so there's no -- we can see how many people are reading at any given moment in time. you can also see how far down an article they get which is really, really interesting. because sometimes you'll have a great headline which will get lots of people, and you'll think, wow, who would have thought that that many people wanted to know about that topic. but then you see you'll have 70% of people who will drop off after the first paragraph. but then you'll have other pieces like, you know, walter kern just wrote a wonderful first-person essay. he's a gun owner, he has, you know, carries guns in his car, talks about how he's had to pull them on people and sort of tries to explain why so many gun owners feel so strongly about their weapons and their rights. anyway, but the number of people who read really, really deep into that piece was on the web was, um, you know, well over 70%. which, um, is not a number that

you would ever know because normally you ask, okay, what was the uniques on the article, not how much time did people spend there and how engages were they there. it's not just on site, you could look at comments, you could look -- although comments tend to reward controversial content. but you could look at social shares on twitter or on facebook. you can also rook at retention -- look at retention which is something we look at. people sign up on our e-mail list, how many of them are actually opening the e-mails and clicking through rather or than just signing up. so i think there's a whole host of metrics to look at. you asked me if i knew good companies that are focused on those. i don't. i think most of the companies tend to have them baked into their profiles like google analytics has it as well. chart beat is what we use. but most people still look at uniques because that's where the cultural emphasis is. >> hi. i'm kathy, i'm the former publisher of a nonprofit

magazine, harvard magazine, and i currently consult to nonprofit media start-ups including another nonprofit magazine called chop chop. i also teach a course on evolving business models in the media industry at the extension school -- >> i should take that one. [laughter] >> yeah. well, 5:30 tonight. >> right. >> beaver 204. and just one quick comment about facebook. i was a freshman adviser for many years and about 2005 other freshman advisers said you need to get on facebook and see what your students are doing. that was the first wave of harvard administrators joining. going back to the business model, two parts. when you talk about experiencial marketing or experiences that you may be able to monotize or maybe part of -- what kinds of things are you talking about? and in particular, are you looking at your, what i perceive as some of your competitors, the atlantic which has gotten b quite involve inside conferences and events in addition to really monetizing a lot of their

digital stuff as well as the nation which is much smaller but has focused on cruises with the editors and things like that. and the second part of the question is thinking along those experiencial things, what do you really perceive as your competition? is it the nation? is it the atlantic? i hear a broader set of competitive voices -- >> yeah. >> but anyway -- >> yeah. um, so the questions of experiences, um, access to content to me is like clicking on a link to read a piece. experiences, to me, are anytime when you choose that you're going to spend time with a brand or a topic. so i have -- that's a pretty broad definition for me. i mean, sitting down to read a magazine is an experience. you choose to have that experience rather than saying more often than not, like, oh, there's that one article i wanted to read in "vanity fair". of let me flip to page 84 or

whatever to read it. so, um, the -- the ipad is a great place to sort of understand the difference between the two. we have what we call web app experience in safari which is about access to content. it's like are there links, are there things that i want to read there, and then we have the native app which we consider an experiencial product because will it's like it is a curated, paginated experience. and the way it's fascinating for me to see how differently consumers think about these things. i keep going back to some of the research that we did, but, you know, you ask people who read magazines, and you would say, um, we did some groups where we'd say, you know, how do you read, um, something like "vanity fair", because someone would say i love "vanity fair". oh, i flip through it, i tend to go from page to page. some people would start at the back, but everyone would have a curated, paginated experience.

and then you would ask what do you think of their web site, and people would say "vanity fair" has a web site? "vanity fair" has or more traffic in some ways to their web site than we do, so it's not a knock at all on "vanity fair", it's just to say it's a totally different way of thinking about content. one is experiencial, and the other, i think, is about accessing certain titles or certain articles that are there. also in that experience category i put events, i put awed e owe, owe -- audio, i put some of the other topics there. so events are important to us. whether or not they can be the future of the business i'm sort of doubtful. i think that when we look from a business perspective, one of the core assets that we have is a lot of brilliant people, a lot of great reporters who know quite a lot about politics and the arts and culture. and the question is how do we use that as an asset. events is an easy sort of play

for us because it's stuff that our readers are interested in, it's stuff that subscribers are interested in, and we also have the expertise to pair it up. on the question of competition, i think, you know, our competitive set is more sort of the new yorker, atlantic, um, maybe new york magazine in some, in some instances. that type of sort of thought leadership publication than it is the opinion journals. i love, you know, the nation. i think the work that they do is very important. but that is much more of the is set that the new republic used to be in, and increasingly i think that's a more and more challenging category. and so the category with the economist and the new yorker and the atlantic -- all of which are doing pretty well from a business perspective all things considered -- is where we're trying to go. >> hi. i'm becky garrison, i'm a

freelance religion writer, and one thing i've noticed of late is what i call the rise of false equivalencies where they'll put out someone usually from the right based on the fact they're a colorful character, interesting, without any examination whatsoever of the veracity of their claims, their data site and so forth. presenting an article where on the youtube is a photo and video clip of someone saying something that is totally inaccurate that is unchallenged. and i'm wondering moving forward what you intend -- your thoughts on that. >> you've got to challenge both sides, yeah. ask questions, and i think it plays into what i was saying earlier about having assessments in the journalism and not just saying, like, you know, he said this, she said that, but actually saying this is what they both said, here are some other data points, and here's what is actually the case. so for lgbt issue, but for other -- >> yes. >> hi, chris. my name's dylan, i'm a student

here in the college. i have a question more broadly about your work in the digital land scape. clearly, you've thought about connecting people online, and so i'm a composer here, and i'm curious how you thought about connecting creative-minded college students like myself. currently there isn't a platform if i want to find a programmer for a graphic designer for a start-up they're working on. what do you think about these types of connections and collaborations? >> i think it's interesting that facebook historically has not tried to serve that role. facebook, um, was much more about connecting with the people that you know and that who are your existing friends and family, not about finding other people. but, you know, this is me just watching now as sort of someone who's unafailuated -- unaffiliated with the company. but what they've done with the open graph search, i don't know if you've followed this, facebook's significantly

expanded their search functionality which makes it very interesting, makes it possible to find exactly what you're talking about. if you're a composer and you need a violinist at harvard, you can actually now search for violinist at harvard and get, um, a list of people, and if you're friends or friends with them, or more often than not you can contact them and say, hey, i need this thing. so i think that's still sort of one of the corners of the web which is very much unexplored because there's some pretty complex human and psychological issues underneath. but if anyone can solve it, it's the folks at facebook, and i think open graph is a step in that direction. >> we're almost back at the very end. since we're back on facebook, i have to ask you what did you think of "social network"? >> oh, the movie? it was hollywood. it paid me wish our dorms were

luxury condominiums. [laughter] and the sex in the bathroom, seeing all of that was very interesting. i never -- [laughter] maybe, i mean, i never saw anything like that. but, no, i mean, i thought it was -- what i thought was great about the film was that it actually, what it -- for all of the things that it got wrong, what it got right was that we were college students at harvard with an idea, and we tried something out, and it initially took off, and, you know, it took time, um, to build. and the hard stuff was not just coming up with the idea, it was building it over time to reach the point that it's at today. and so i think it played into that, um, belief that, you know, anybody, college kids in a dorm room can create something that can change the world -- >> transform a hundred-year-old magazine. [laughter] chris hughes, great to have you here. and congratulations on your purchase and very best luck with

this. >> thank you. >> really. >> thank you for having me. ms. . [applause] >> chris has some people waiting for him. he's not going to be able to wait around to say hello to you all, but i apologize to you on his behalf. >> great. thanks. >> the u.s. senate is on a break now to allow members to attend weekly party meetings. they will be back at 2:15 to finish work on final passage of the violence against women act. also possible today, debate on the chuck hagel nomination to be defense secretary. live coverage of the senate when they return here on c-span2 and, again, that'll be at 2:15 eastern. the senate can only begin debate on the hagel nomination after it's passed out of the senate armed services committee. they are meeting this afternoon to vote on that nomination. senate democrats decided to move ahead with the vote after

republicans threatened a walkout. hagel's nomination could move out of the committee on a party-line vote. democrats hold a 14-12 edge on the senate armed services panel. you can watch that vote live at 2:45 eastern on our companion network, c-span3. earlier today the senate armed services committee heard from a number of military leaders about the potential impact of budget cuts that are set to take effect in march. chief of staff of the army, general ray odierno, was among those testifying today calling the potential effects of she sequester dire. here's what he had to say. >> the fiscal outlook which the u.s. army faces in fiscal year '13 is dire, and to my knowledge, unprecedented. in addition to the 170 billion in cuts to the army levied by the budget control act of 2011, the combination of the cometting resolution -- continuing resolution, a shortfall, excuse me, the shortfall in overseas

contingency operation funds for afghanistan and the sequester in fiscal year 2013 has resulted in a $7-$18 billion shortfall to the army's operation and maintenance accounts as well as an additional $6 billion cut to other programs. all of this will come in the remaining seven months of this year. the fiscal year '13 fiscal situation will have grave and immediate readiness impacts on all forces not serving in afghanistan or forward in korea. impacts which will have a significant impact well into fiscal year '14 and beyond. just a few of the acts that we will be forced to take are, for example, we'll curtail training for 80% of ground forces. this will impact our units' basic war-fighting skills, introduce shortfalls across critical specialties including

aviation, intelligence, engineering and even our ability to recruit soldiers into our army. we have directed an immediate army-wide hiring freeze, and we will terminate an estimated 3100 temporary and term employees. we will furlough up to 251,000 civilians for up to 22 days. we will cancel third and fourth quarter depot maintenance which will result in the termination of an estimated 5,000 employees and delay, and a significant delay in equipment readiness for six divisions. and an estimated $3.36 billion impact to the communities surrounding our depots. for fiscal year '14 and beyond, sequestration will result in the loss of at least an additional 100,000 personnel, soldiers from the active army, the army national guard and the u.s. army reserve. combined with previous cuts,

this will result in a total reduction of at least 189,000 personnel from the force but probably even more than that. these reductions will impact at the army base and every installation in the army. sequestration will result in delays to every one of our ten major modernization programs. the inability to reset our equipment after 12 years of war and unacceptable reductions in unit and individual training. these consistents will be felt across the entire country. since the total army budget will have been reduced by 37%. if sequestration is enacted, it'll be greater than 45%. in my opinion, sequestration's not in the best interests of our national security. it will place an unreasonable burden on the shoulders of our soldiers and civilians. we will not be able to execute the department of defense

strategic guidance as we developed last year. i understand the seriousness of our country's fiscal situation. we have and we will continue to do our part. but the cig significance of thee budget reductions will directly impact our ability to sustain readiness today and into the future. of we simply cannot take the readiness of our force for granted. if we do not have the resources to train and equip the force, our soldiers, our young men and is women are the ones -- our young men and women are the ones who will pay the price, potentially with their lives. it is our responsibility, the department of defense and congress, to insure that we never send soldiers into harm's way that are not trained, equipped, well led and ready for any contingency to include war. we must come up with a better solution. >> and that entire hearing is available in the c-span video library. see it at c-span.org.

tonight president obama delivers his fourth state of the union address to a joint session of congress. coverage begins at 8 p.m. eastern. the president's speech is at 9. it'll be followed by the republican response from florida senator marco rubio, and throughout the night we'll hear from journalists and other members of congress. we'll also get your thoughts on the speech and some of the issues raised by the president. we'll take them by phone, twitter and facebook, and that's tonight on c-span, c-span radio and, of course, c-span.org. and we want to hear from you on our facebook page, we're asking you if you think state of the union addresses matter. weigh in with your opinion at facebook.com/c-span. and a preview of tonight's state of the union address now from the this morning's "washington journal." >> host: we now turn to two reporters to give us some insight into the state of the union speech tonight. anita kumar, white house correspondent for mcclatchy newspapers, welcome, also jonathan strong, congressional

reporter from "roll call." good morning to you as well. >> guest: morning. >> host: how much do we know about what president obama plans to say tonight? do we have much of an indication? >> guest: we have some of an indication. i think he will return to talking about the economy. that's sort of what we're hearing from the white house. he has four things that he's going to focus on, but all of them will stress the economic context of it. energy, um, he'll talk about infrastructure which is new, new roads, new bridges, things like that, manufacturing, and, um, then he'll also talk about education and making college more affordable. but all of that will be in the context of how can we make our economy grow stronger, how can we promote and grow the middle class. >> host: and here's the headline in the financial times this morning, obama to focus anticipation on the economy. speech to be heavy on home initiatives. how much of this will echo what we heard at the inaugural address? >> guest: i think it'll be a little bit different from that. i think there were a lot of comments after the inaugural address that it was very aggressive on sort of social issues. he talked about gay rights,

equal pay for women, even voting rights. um, and i think you'll see some of that, but my sense is you'll see only those things that can sort of come into an economic context. so while he might talk about immigration, what we need to do as a country on that, it'll be in the vein of how does it help the economy. >> host: and, jonathan, how significant is the tone as congress readies its reaction to what the president says? >> guest: well, i was at a retreat in lees burg, virginia, last week, and the president took quite an aggressive tone in terms of the coming standoff with republicans over the sequestration cuts. i was surprised at how feisty he was. he said he's more than ready to engage in a standoff with them over those cuts. now, if you remember, he wants tax increases and a combination of tax increases and spending cuts, and the republicans just want to keep it as all spending cuts. >>st if you'd like to join the conversation with anita and

jonathan, republicans call 202-585-3881. democrats, 20e 2-585-3880, and independent callers, 202-585-3 202-585-3882. so do we have a sense of how members of congress will have responses to what the president says? how much preparation can they do ahead of time to talk to camera tonight, to respond tomorrow? is. >> guest: i mean, they're reading all the stories that we're writing about what's going to be in it, and they're preparing, but, i mean, you do have to make an audible at the last minute given a what exactly happens in the speech. nobody usually know, although it has leaked in the past now. there's some precedent for it leaking in full before the speech is actually delivered. but most of the time you're going to have to react as it happens. >> guest: we have -- >> host: we have a poll asking whether or not viewers think state of the union addresses matter. 57% say no, 43% say yes.

>> guest: i think they matter a lot, people don't really seem to remember what the president says the next day. i think they matter, and they set the tone for what's going to come up in the next few months. it's funny, i was talking to some speech writers for past president who is talked a lot about how -- who talked a lot about how people beg to get just a sentence or a phrase in the state of the union address because they feel like that's going to become an issue later on down the line if it's just mentioned by the president. >> stwhrs we're seeing some stories about who might be attending this speech. what do we know about guests tonight, jonathan? >> guest: nancy pelosi is bringing a fourth grader who was at the newtown elementary school when the shooting occurred, and a number of lawmakers are bringing people from newtown. so there is a definite focus from the congressional democrats, at least, on the gun control proposals that the president and the democrats are putting forward. >> host: and, anita kumar. >> guest: yeah. they haven't announced, obviously, people always sit

with the first lady. they haven't announced the full list, but we've started to hear some of the names and, again, there will be emphasis on gun victims. the parents of the 15-year-old girl, teenage girl that was killed in chicago, i think that was about a week ago, they will be joining the first lady, um, just to refresh people's memory, she was killed -- it was just, she lived about a mile from the obamas' house there, and she was killed in just random gunfire. >> host: how much do the cameras show us, anita? >> guest: i think the spotlight's really on these people. the president often mentions them in his speech, and so i think the spotlight's really on them for about a day, and then they kind of have to go back to their regular life after that. okay. let's go to our first caller, george joining us from florida on our republicans' line. good morning, george. >> caller: yeah. i only just -- [inaudible] and now the taxes are going to

go up, and you said the president was going to seek the taxes raising. i just wonder, i mean, raise taxes on me, going to really hurt. and i think i'm going to probably -- but i have to ask one thing. when do we know that we're taxed enough? how high can taxes go? i don't think anybody has addressed that yet. use the term "we." it's not we anymore, it's some of us paying taxes. >> host: he's breaking up a little bit on the phone, but he's talking about the issue of taxes and how much is too much to be taxed. jonathan strong, do you think we'll actually hear the word "taxes" tonight from president obama? >> guest: well, no, and for some time now democrats in general have been using a new term for tax increases which is revenues. it sounds much nicer. it's like sugar, you know, to

help the medicine go down, i guess. and so that is what he'll refer to. and quote-unquote, a balanced approach is the preferred nomenclature for the president. >> host: here's some stories about guests, as anita mentioned, the mother of a shooting victim in chicago will be a guest of the first lady during the state of the union tonight. you can see there an image of her. the announcement comes just a few days after the first lady attended the teenager's funeral. and also looking at guests tonight, we see this, ted nugent plans to be there. this is a story coming to us from the washington times. it says the cameras could linger on rock icon, carnivore and gun rights advocate ted nugent when he takes his seat in the house gallery for tonight's address. he's a guest of of representative steve stockman, and the texas republican's intent? his communications adviser, danny ferguson, says we hope president obama will consider the millions of americans who privately own firearms and would have their second amendment rights stomped out by a

universal background check. anita kumar, are we seeing representation of a battle being wage inside the united states here -- waged here in the united states house chambers tonight. >> guest: i think they are. guests will reflect other issues as well, immigration included. and also i have heard about some people who had trouble voting on election day, particularly one woman in florida who, i think, she's 102, and she had to stand in line for six hours is coming from the miami area. but, yes, it sounds like most of the guests so far are relating to the gun issue. and the president will talk about that, although i don't think that's going to be the focus of the speech. >> host: what about social issues? what else might we hear him talk about tonight? >> guest: he actually talk inside the inaugural address, if you'll remember, really pretty strongly about gay rights, gay marriage, and that is something that advocates are really looking for him to mention tonight. he has talked about a few other things, but primarily he, you know, he's mentioned sort of

equality for women, equal pay for women, social issues in that regard. but definitely a focus tonight on the economy. >> host: let's go to betty in pittsburgh, kansas, on our republicans' line. hi, betty. >> caller: good morning. i would like to say before an address such as the state of the union we always have war and more war and threats of war and threats of bombs and threats of killingsing and all of these things -- killings and all of these things focused on and happening, and it's almost like we stir it up before a state of the union address, or it's like when you have a holiday, the gasoline, you know for sure, is going to go up. what is the point? we need to get out of a privatized war where we cannot

control generals or companies, corporate companies taking more money, putting more money into the cayman islands for private use. and our soldiers are made up of the poor. they are not made up of congress' sons as they were in world war ii -- >> host: betty, do you plan to watch or listen to the speech this evening? >> caller: absolutely, yes. but it, if you need to listen to what isn't said as well as what is said. >> host: okay. how is what isn't said significant, anita kumar in. >> guest: well, i think it is going to be interesting. she was talking about war. i don't think we're going to hear a lot about foreign policy tonight. you will hear about the president trying to, um, pull

troops out of afghanistan. you can bet we'll hear that. and, of course, we'll probably hear about north korea since that happened today. i heard you mention that earlier. so that might change things a little bit. but i think there will be a good number of things that he will not mention, which is interesting. >> guest: for the record, i've never observed a pattern of wars beginning in conjunction with state of the union addresses. [laughter] but one thing i'm going to be watching for is the congressional black caucus met recently with valerie jarrett on the hill, and she's one of the president's top advisers. they discussed the state of the union to some extent, and the question i have is whether he's going to address black unemployment specifically and things that will help bring that number down. i think that that's what the congressional black caucus wants, but i don't know if that's what he's going to do. >> host: we're talking with anita kumar and jonathan strong, iowa anita works for mcclatchy newspapers, her background

includes time at "the washington post" from 2007-2012 and the st. petersburg times where she worked in both florida and washington. and jonathan strong, congressional reporter for "roll call." right now he covers house leadership, but he's had other experience there as well. he also was an investigative reporter at the daily caller and reported on environmental regulations for inside the epa. our next caller is jim in marietta, georgia, republican. hi, jim. >> caller: hi. yeah, i'm not going to watch tonight because i'm sure it'll just be the same as usual. >> host: and what does that mean to you? what's the same as usual? >> caller: the same stuff of he always talks about, how he's going to lower taxes and how he's going to get jobs going, but it's the same stuff. no, he's got those kids up there for pawns to show 'em trying to pass his gun rights bill. which he should leave that alone. i mean, guns don't kill people. people kill.

so, i mean, he's just screwing everything up, the way i look at it. >> host: jim, are you going to watch senator rubio's gop response tonight? >> guest: yeah. i'll watch that. but i won't watch obama though. >> host: and what about rand paul? we're seeing senator paul of kentucky give a tea party rebuttal. >> caller: yeah, i'll watch him. i don't care about watching obama. you watch him one time, you know what he's going to say. >> host: anita, what do we know about what senator rubio plans to say tonight? >> guest: i think a lot of people are going to be watching him. they're calling him the new face of the republican party, the young, very charismatic speaker, and he's been very involved in the immigration issue, so i think people are going to be looking to see sort of how, how much he'll embrace what, you know, what president obama says and, you know, if he'll be willing to go along. the president's going to talk today, his advisers say, about there are places we can find common ground. and so the question will be,

will senator rubio be talking this that vein that they can find common ground or taking a step back? >> host: and, jonathan strong, he comes from the ranks of the capitol from behind us. how much republican leadership influencing what senator rubio has to say tonight? >> guest: well, they obviously huddle and work things out. at the same time, senator rubio has his own political interests at stake as well, and he's if all likelihood going to be running for president in 2016, so i'm sure he's, you know, laying down his marker early in these discussions. >> host: and what's the difference between what he'll be delivering and what senator rand paul of kentucky will be talking about tonight? >> guest: there's been a lot of talk about this because, you know, is this an alternative? is this a rival address? and rand paul has said, no, no, no, we're in conjunction, we're on the same team, so to speak. so i think the thing to watch out for is places where the two speeches don't agree with one another, that kind of highlights

the republican party is not united on some of issues. >> host: david's up in ohio, independent caller. where are you from in ohio, david? >> guest: chill cost think. >> host: okay, go right ahead. >> caller: well, i think basically a union address is basically a waste of time. it doesn't follow through. it kind of drops us all out, and then that's where the unemployment rate comes up because we just kind of give up because our taxes are being raised s. and as well as our immigration. they put a cinch on that because there again it has gone back to the september 11th. we was or more open to who we let come in. but there again the more we let come in, the more our taxes are going to go up in support of each individual that comes in to the country. so i think there's a few issues they have to address with immigration. plus this again getting our troops out of afghanistan.

but yet we're going to stay and rebuild. so i don't see any, any sense in keeping our troops around if we're going to rebuild a country or a nation that has been at war with us. >> host: okay. thanks, david. response, anita kumar? >> guest: i didn't quite follow what he was saying in the beginning. about immigration, though, we'll see a strong emphasis on that s. he talked about his taxes going up, i think. it's interesting that a couple callers now have talked about how president obama's sort of said the same things about taxes going up. and, actually, yesterday republicans had started to hear about some of the things that the president was going to talk about, the economy, and they already started to say, oh, it's the same thing, the same thing we've opinion hearing for four years. so i think it'll be really important for the president to talk about not just old proposals, which he will talk about old proposals, but how's he going to get new jobs

created. >> host: rubin from jacksonville, florida, on our democrats' line. >> guest: the republicans are not telling you everything that they're doing. they want to cut social security, and they want to cut ped care, but they're not telling you how they're lobbying the oil companies -- [inaudible] they're sending money other across the foreign seas, so i don't think the republicans have much -- the republicans did not win the election. obama won the election. and they want to send all this money across the seas, but they want to cut medicare, social security and obama hasn't put nothing on the table yet. i feel like that's unfair to the people that need help in this country. >> host: reuben, what do you want to hear from the president tonight? >> caller: well, i want to hear that he's telling the republicans that what they're trying to do is not going to work because, first of all, the republicans is not telling you the truth about everything. they're still trying to get rich off this scheme that their

planning. and i want obama to talk about these things, bring them to light where we can start letting the people vote, let them know that, republicans, you did not win the election. >> host: okay. so our caller from florida, a democrat, jonathan strong, says he wants the president to go out on the offensive because he has a mandate. will we hear that kind of a tone? >> guest: i believe so. reading all the stories about what's coming up, one of the interesting things is you saw a round of stories in the press that said obama's going to pivot back to the economy in this speech. then the white house came out and said we're not pivoting to the economy. one of the things that the republicans harped on is that, you know, obama has pivoted to the economy over and over and over and over again throughout his presidency. it's almost an embarrassment at this point when he says he's going to pivot back to the economy because he's, the recovery is still tepid.

>> host: anita cue or mar: >> guest: it was interesting what the caller just said, because the president since election day has repeatedly said, well, the american people agreed with me. every time he introduces a new proposal on a balanced approach to the economy, he says, well, i won the election, the people agree with me. so i think we will see that message tonight, definitely. he has been talking about that for two months now. >> host: and here's the headline to have washington times, the state of the union to fulfill the wish list for liberals. the momentum to push agenda. craig, marriesville, ohio, republican. welcome. >> caller: hey, how you doing? >> host: good. >> caller: the one question i've got is he talks about rebuilding infrastructure, and at the end of this, at the end of this month we're going to face a debt ceiling once again. but why is it that we spend $700 million in cairo to rebuild their sow we are systems -- suer systems? >> host: so, craig, what else do

you think about foreign policy? what's your opinion about other international nudes -- news? >> >> caller: i more care about the infrastructure of this country and how our jobs are being shipped overseas. so i want to know what he's going to do to bring the jobs back. >> host: okay. so, anita kumar, do you think he'll hear concrete ideas on jobs? there's the economy on one hand, and our caller wants to hear about infrastructure in particular. >> guest: well, the white house says there are four areas of interest and manufacturing is one, but infrastructure is another. so those jobs and how to grow the economy are supposed to be there. so we'll seement they also said it's a come combination of old proposals that he has tried to get past in the last four years and has been unable and also new proposals. >> guest: on the question of the infrastructure, i think the caller has the idea that a lot of our federal spending is being diverted to foreign aid. and most people are surprised to learn that it's less than 1% of the budget.

if you look at federal spending, the entitlement programs -- social security, medicare -- are actually putting a tremendous amount of pressure on the rest of government's responsibilities because it continues to take a greater and greater share of spending. and if you look at the spending pat battles over the past two years, all of those cuts have come out of other thing, not social security and medicare. if we keep seeing that, you're going to see less of defense, infrastructure, more money coming in and going out back to people in the united states. >> host: are members of congress that we're not hearing from tonight on the official agenda who are not significant? congressman paul ryan, the vp nominee on the republican side, other members of congress who hope to be members of the democratic or republican party in the future, where are they going to be tonight? >> guest: i think that republicans are probably going to be on their best behavior. if you remember the joe wilson, you lie, moment, i imagine with other not going to see a repeat

of that fireworks. but they're going to be watching it; they're going to be preparing their response. speaker boehner will be evaluating his next move in the spending battles that are looming over the capitol. and they'll have to figure it out. >> host: one of our followers on twitter, jodi, writes in and says: whatever is said tonight, i hope that no one will interrupt the president with a childish "you lie." [laughter] >> guest: yeah. i don't think it's going to happen. i'll be surprised if it does. >> host: and as i mentioned, the washington post: plenty of time to think of a line when the president walks by. it talks about the competition to get a seat on the aisle so members can shake the president's hand as he enters the chamber. anita kumar, why are the visuals of this important for members? >> guest: they just want their -- there are stories about how members have waited six, seven hours. some of those people just want a chance to say something, shake his hand. others want to be on television. they want that moment for themselves.

so it's kind of interesting. it's sort of the same group every year, too, that waits around. >> guest: the whole thing is a stage, and, you know, the it's political theater. it's all symbolic. the guests are symbolic, the aisle seats are symbolic. and, you know, they want that photo of them shaking the hand of the president in their newspaper back home to show that they're somebody here in washington. >> host: jonathan strong, congressional reporter for roll call and anita kumar is our other guest, white house or correspondent for mcclatchy pneumonias. mike's our next caller, democrats' line. hi, michael. >> guest: hi. >> host: go right ahead. >> caller: okay. i'm calling about the entitlements. >> host: okay. >> caller: romney says he's going to shut all the loopholes, and the republicans are changing their mind. how come? what's the reason for that? is that was one of the big things, you know, in the election. >> host: so -- >> see in this "washington journal" segment online at c-span.org. the u.s. senate is about to return from their weekly party meetings. we expect senators will continue votes on the violence against

women act reauthorizing the program for five years. final passage vote likely today. mr. coburn: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. coburn: this is simply an amendment that says if a woman is raped and there's an article of indictment against a rapist, she ought to have the right to know the sexually transmitted diseases that indicted rapist carries. i will reserve the balance of my time. the presiding officer: who yields time?

a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: madam president, the amendment offered by senator coburn sets up requirements that many state and local governments cannot comply with and will cause states to lose millions in grant funds to help victims of rape and domestic violence. instead of helping victims of rape and domestic violence it's going to leave thousands of them without help. so i would hope that we would vote against this it. the leahy-crapo bill already has

provisions for testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. this is why the national task force to end sexual and domestic violence against women strongly opposes this amendment. in fact, everybody we've heard from opposes it and i oppose it. mr. coburn: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. coburn: the people who oppose it oppose it on the grounds they might not get as much money unless they keep a woman raped twice, once by the system and once by their attacker. if you vote for this, you say you don't have any compassion for the women who don't know the status of the person who raped her. therefore they go under treatment, they go under unknown and severe sick logical stress having to be repeatedly tested. we put this in the bill last time at 5%. all we did was raise it to 20% to try into deuce this behavior

at the states. the chairman of the judiciary committee voted for this last time. so to say what we're doing is not in the best interest of women is wrong and if you really think women ought to get raped twice, vote against this amendment. the presiding officer: mr. leahy: would that it were so simple. the amendment is simply going to take protection away from thousands of women and that's why i oppose it. the presiding officer: the question is on the amendment. a senator: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: any other senators wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, the ayes are 43, the nays are 57. the amendment is not agreed to. the clerk will read the bill for a third time. mr. leahy: madam president? the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the clerk will read the bill for a third time. the clerk: calendar number 1, s.

47, a bill to reauthorize the violence against women act of 1994. the presiding officer: under the previous order, there will be two minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote in relation to the passage of s. 47, as amended. the senate will come to order. mr. leahy: madam president, we're still not in order. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. mr. leahy: thank you. madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: as the senate now votes on the violence against women reauthorization act, i hope we'll join together in a strong bipartisan majority, as we did last year, to pass this important legislation. it will help all victims of domestic and sexual violence and its passage is way overdue. we're working to protect victi

victims, all victims, of domestic and sexual violence. a victim is a victim is a victim and violence is violence is violence so i hope senators will look past any ideological opposition and join with us. i remember last year when the former senior senator from texas, senator hutchison, when her proposal failed, she joined th all of us and -- and voted to pass this bill. i hope those who previously opposed our efforts to improve the violence against women act would vote with us and send a strong message to the other body. the presiding officer: who yields time in opposition? mr. leahy: and i ask for the yeas and nays. i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. there is. the clerk will call the roll.

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or wishing to change their vote? if not, the yeas are 78 and the nays are 22. s. 47 as amended is passed. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: i move to reconsider. mrs. murray: i move to lay on the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: madam president, i want to thank all my fellow senators in both parties who voted for this. you know, if you're somebody who has seen firsthand results of

violence against women, it would be almost impossible to vote no on this bill. will this stop all violence? no. but will it stop a lot of it? yes. and will it also make possible those who are caught in violence a chance for support, a chance for some place to go, a chance to be protected from future attacks. madam president, this is the kind of legislation that speaks to the conscience of our nation. it speaks to the conscience of the united states senate. it tells everybody, usually the most defenseless in our society, this body stands with you. and madam president, i would just urge our friends on the other side of the capitol to

move quickly with similar legislation. this is something that we should not be held up on. this is a way that we can say we oppose violence against women, we oppose it today, we oppose it tomorrow, we will oppose it forever. and madam president, i yield the floor and i suggest the -- whoops. madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: madam president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. brown: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. brown: i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business for only up to five minutes.

the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brown: thank you, mr. president. i'm concerned when i saw a number of my colleagues are again trying to block the appointment of ohioan richard cordray to the consumer agency. that agency has already played a significant role in saving tens of millions of dollars for consumers who have been wronged in a checking account transaction, who have been nickel and dimed and then some by bank fees, and former ohio attorney general cordray has done an excellent job as the director of that consumer bureau, but what troubles me, mr. president, this is -- this is only the second time in the history of the senate -- at least as far as the senate historian can figure -- the only second time in the history of the senate when a group of senators have -- from one party have blocked the nomination of a presidential appointee because they don't like the agency, because they oppose the construct of the agency itself. the first time that ever

happened was just a couple of years ago with richard cordray in this position. now, the creation of the consumer bureau was -- went through regular order. it was passed by the senate banking committee, on which i sit. it was part of the dodd-frank reform, wall street reform bill. it went through the house of representatives. it went to conference committees. all that happened was regular order to create this agency. many people didn't like the agency. i submit to -- i agree with -- i understand that. i don't agree that it is not a good agency. they don't like it because it stood up to wall street and it stood up to some of the bank abuses that got news this financial situation as -- that got us in this financial situation as a country. but even with that, if you don't like the agency -- never before in history except these two times with the same appointment process in the same appointee, the same designee, nome -- same nominee from the president, has this happened. my colleagues have said, even though he's qualified, we're not is going to nominate -- we're

not going to vote to confirm richard cordray because we don't like the agency. if you're not willing to change the agency, we're not willing to support a director. the cientsdz -- imagine the kind of precedent that sets, mr. president, when if you don't like an arks you're never going to let the president confir -- e never going to confirm who the president nominated. government can't run that way. government will be dysfunctional if this precedent is set and is ongoing. in addition to the fact that cordray is right t for the job,n addition to the fact that this agency is very, very important for middle-class, working-class, and low-income people who need these consumer protections. it sets a very bad precedent pour this body. i'm hopeful that some of my other colleagues on the other side of the aisle will think clearly about this and move forward in this confirmation

process. thank you, mr. president. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. reid: i would ask unanimous consent the call of the quorum be terminated. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. reid: i ask that joelle corning be granted floor privileges through december 31 of this year. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to s. res. 29. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 29, to constitute the majority party's membership on certain committees for the 113th congress, or until their successors are chosen. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the presiding officer of the senate be authorized to appoint a committee on the part of the senate to join a select

committee on the part of the house to escort president obama into the house chamber for the joint session to be held tonight at 9:00 p.m. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the senate recess until 8. 30 p.m. today, tonight, and proceed as a body to the hall of the house of representatives for the joint session of congress provided under provisions of h. con. res. 11. and that upon the disillusion of the joint session, the senate adjourn until on:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, wednesday, february 13. following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the leaders be reserved for their use later in the day. that following any leader remarks, the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each, with the republicans controlling the first 30 minutes and the majority the second 30 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. reid: then, mr. president, we'll gather in the senate chamber tonight at 8:20 to proceed as a body to the house for the state of the union address. we hope to begin debate on the nomination of senator hagel to be secretary of defense tomorr tomorrow. if there's no further business to come before the senate, i ask

that it recess under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands in recess until

our mission is to carry forward our foundings of scholarship and excellence in journalism. in keeping with that mission, the proceeds of tonight's dinner go to the foundation's charitable defnts including collecting oral histories of leading women in journalism and

our successful internship program. this year we have taken on an ambitious digty disietion process to make our oral histories more accessible and more secure for prosperity through our internship program we provide full funding for half a dozen college students to work over the summer at media organizations. learning the tradition of excellence that is the hallmark of our foundation. our media partner this is year are the "new york times," first newspapers, los angeles times, cbs, the "huffington post" and bet now i'm delighted to turn overt podium to our eloquent and gracious emcee major garrett as you know major is the white house correspondent for cbs news he is also for national journal

and writes a weekly column. in addition he's written several books most recently the enduring revolution i'm also proud to note that he's a former member of the washington press club foundation, we are most grateful to major for taking time away from his day job for tonight's emcee duties. major, over to you. [applause] >> thank you, ellen. i want you to know i'm ever mindful of my day job. i don't want to confuse duties with being a comic i've been in your seat many times and i've never been with until tonight at the head table. going to move at a smart pace and so let's move along. but i will tell you one thing because i feel like your eyes an ears up here like a scout because be i've been down where you are sitting and i've had a chance to look at senator high campus and remarks. so if you haven't begun to do i

suggest you drink heavily. [laughter] all right. quick shoutout to my colleagues at the construction and national journal, it is great to have you here -- you've been in washington as long as you have i've colleagues sprinkled around every table it is great to have you here. here to run a show quickly. going to do the david lynch awards and the washington press club lifetime achievement award. glad with us tonight and have remarks and turn it over to what you came to see, not me but senator high camp. let's get right to. the david lynch award is an important award for me because i knew him and his wife deborah is here. when we give a round of applause i knew david when i first came to here and sort of give me a little bit of advice to help me along the way like ribbing me

and say major write that down, that is a good quote and put that in your story, trust me. he was a prince of a man who covered renallal news for many different newspapers and did so with a grace and elegance but i also admired and still do to this day, the winners of this year's david lynch award emphasizes at a newspaper level is allison sherry of the denver post. allison if you would please come up here. [applause] now as allison makes her way up here, i do want to note the honorable mentions matt of the salt lake tribune forgive me. one of news service and of the las vegas suns. let's give them a round of applause. [applause] >> all right ellen has

familiarized you with the washington press club's mission, how it got started all of those things i believe and i believed in when i was a board member many years ago in the early 90s we all do. and i want to before we get to the video of lindsay a couple things about who she is, which i'm sure the video will further aluminate in 1970 when she was at "newsweek" she was one of 46 women journalist who is followed the eeo o c because it wouldn't allow women to write in that news room. seems impossible to believe now but that was a real issue, career crisis for her and her colleagues web an i want to note something is that you might find of interest. out here among you tonight is the lawyer who represented lynn and the 45 members of "newsweek." eleanor she was the lawyer ho represented lynn so we have it all coming together about are round of applause.

[applause] very quickly -- and i imagine my colleagues here who are women will deemly appreciate this one little part of the story. you might imagine that it was kind of a career crisis for these 46 women to try to figure out a way to sue the company that they worked for dominated my men. and so they had all of the secret meetings to decide how they would do it and recruit their members why, ladies? in the ladies' room, that's exactly right. so that story is part and parable of what they did in the sisterhood for news womb. ultimately successful and lynn became the first senior editor of "newsweek" 1991 she went on to become the managing editor or editor in chief of women's world magazine, and out o of work at msnbc. and the health care and the

video of lynn povich. >> as the daughter of a journalist may have been destined to become one herself but probably not. >> we were raised to get married, to have children, to be good wives and mothers. >> half of my class got married that june when we graduated and the rest of us got jobbed. >> she became a secretary in the bureau of "newsweek," a year later she joined the new york office as a researcher, only men held higher positions. >> if you wanted to write and you came for a job at "newsweek" yowrld told go someplace else. women don't write at "newsweek." >> the civil rights act was now law. >> we decided that we had to do something because now it is illegal, and this is now a moral issue. the men are doing something that

is actually against the law. and so one by one we started secretly organize oing. >> lynn was among the four organizers who approached then aclu attorney eleanor norton. >> i was astounded, this was a old order where women were supposed to have gender based jobs and men were supposed to have the rest. >> "newsweek" ran a cover story on the women's movement in 1970. on the very same day nearly 50 women announced they were filing suit against the magazine for sex discrimination, the first women journalist to do so. >> these women have to be understood to be what they were. they were in the frontlines of the professional women fooling a major corporation that was not only not easy. they department have predecessors to make them feel empowered, make them feel that this was okay to do. >> took two years but "newsweek"

gradually started opening the ranks. >> i'm indebted to the women in new york for the doors they opened for me, and for actually women throughout the profession because it was really the first dominoes to fall. >> women and a other news organizations soon followed suit, and lynn herself became the first woman senior editor at "newsweek." >> the biggest thing about having lynn in the room at senior editor was that she was at the table to suggest story ideas and broaden the vision of the men on the magazine and we ended up doing stories that we wouldn't have done if the room were filmed with only men. >> lynn became editor in chief of working woman magazine. she then signed on to help launch mcnbc as head of east coast programming. edited a book about her father, washington post sports columnist

shirley and her book about the "newsweek" with lawsuit came out this past september. >> i always had affirmative action baby. if the laws had not been in place i never would have gotten the opportunity i gotten. certainly not as quickly as i had. >> lynn deserves a lot of credit for not backing down and doing it always in a very, gentle way. i think there aren't very many people who could carry a radical action and still be, you know, seen as the gracious human being that she is. [applause] >> before -- before we give a louder and more ruckus round of applause i want to tell her something there was a quote about the video about how your presence expands the

vision of men who were around the table. well, in 1970 when that was happening i was 8 years old living in san diego my mother was an executive with at&t and carried a brief case to work she was an engineer without a college education. and that example broadened horizons for me as a young man to think about a working mom and woman how to view the world in a different way. so what you did in that news room for "newsweek" rippled across the country 3,000 miles away to a home in san diego. i'm indebted to you and the "newsweek" 46. ladies and gentlemen give a big round of applause to our lifetime achievement winner. [applause]

[applause] >> thank you very much, garrett major, and good evening everyone. those of us on the dais and to our distinguished guests. before i begin i would like to thank my family that is here with me tonight and has always rooted for me. my brother david, my sisters-in-law connie an my husband steve shepard who makes everything possible for me. and i would particularly like to thank my guest congresswoman eleanor norton who pushed open the doors for so many of us. [applause] thank you eleanor for all that you do.

i'm honored to accept this award in the name of all of the brave women journalists who challenged the status quo and rebelled at great risk against their bosses. who fought for equal opportunities in the news room against criminations, rejections and work, and who paved the way for women to assume equal positions and pay in journalism. as the editor of "newsweek," osborne elliot leader told me by changing the role of women at the magazine, we not only made "newsweek" a better place to work, we made "newsweek" a better magazine. by bringing in more voices, and more points of view and by giving our readers a more accurate reflection of society. this is true for every institution including congress. women not only enrich the

culture, they broaden the vision and the mandate. but we aren't there yet. in 1993 women compromised 10% of congress. it is taken 20 years to take us to o -- 18% today and in company women compromise about 15% of executive level positions, and that number has not changed in 10 years. until i vote about the "newsweek" lawsuit, our primary place in history was lost. and so i'm particularly grateful to the washington press club foundation, not only for this prestigious award but more importantly for preserving and promoting the contribution that women journalists have made and continue to make in our country. and speaking to young women with about the good girls revolt, i have discovered that they are eager to learn our history.

their history, and so we have to keep honoring our four mothers and forefathers who fought for the rights we now take for granted. we have to keep telling our stories, and we have to keep fighting for equal opportunities for everyone. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> now we often tell ourselves that we write the first draft of history true enough but history has an ark and lynn is the

representation of that ark. thank you so much for your presence. as i promised we're moving this smartly along. i will say this senator hie camp. after chuck hagel's performance you have a long ride ahead of you. let's go. [applause] >> well general garrett, major -- >> haven't heard that one. [laughter] i knew he would say that yeah like get really original. thank you for that long and lengthy introduction i'm so pleased to be here tonight although i am not quite sure how i ended up being one of your speakers other than bad staff work. [laughter] that's probably the 16th lie that politicians tell. it really is my fault i didn't know what the heck this was when

i said yes. so i only have myself to blame for the discomfort that i've experienced the last couple of hours. [laughter] like most politicians, i'm no stranger to a microphone. in fact, we fight over microphones if you're a politician. in fact, during my ten years attorney general, i spoke to my daughter's second grade class my daughter did not introduce me as the crime fighting attorney general. she did not introduce me as the protecter of senior citizens, she did not introduce me as the job creator that i was. in fact, she ignored all of the talking points i gave her. [laughter] and she simply said this is my mom, she makes speeches for a living. [laughter] i used to tell people i'm not a real lawyer but i play one on television. so as someone who makes speeches for a living, why am i so

stressed about tonight? the truth is like almost every politician you know, i'm not very funny. [laughter] in fact, i watched the videos of previous presentations that have been given to you by politicians, and i'm sure you're painfully aware that this is true. i did not fully appreciate how unfunny i was until panic about this lack of skill and my tonight's appearance set in about 1:00 this afternoon. now, most of you know that like great delusional procrastinators, i thought i'll have just a few hours to get funny. and so what would you do if you were a united states senator an you thought you needed to get fun ?i? you would go sit next to al franken, right?

speaking that the funny would rub off and maybe he would take pity as i told him the pain that i was going through about, and he would write a joke. not al. [laughter] so i'm not feeling any funnier for my experience with al franken, in fact, i'm feeling less funny. so with the plan famed and it was on to plan b, as i call it the instant internet fix. you know what that is, right? so those of you who are regular internet users, you know that internet advertisers, that would be all of you -- [laughter] you know about the google and the system of tubes, i know. [laughter] internet advertisers are amazing, right? they know how to find your special needs, your special opportunities, for example, you order a couple plus sized jackets, and you get the banner ad on the side that says lose 20 pounds in two days.

so i thought, well this is a works for that it has to work if you order up a couple joke books an get an instant banner ad telling me how to be an instant stand-up comedian in an hour or less. well as of speech time just checked the phone -- no banner ad. so plan b has failed me. and so i thought i will talk and tell you all that i used to be since you didn't, i used to be -- [laughter] the north dakota state tax commissioner. [applause] those of you who are familiar with north dakota state tax commissioners you know come with charts. senator conrad was a tax commissioner before me so i thought i'll just tell you stories about being north dakota's state tax commissioner. now you all look panicked because you think this will be a discussion about the difference

between earned and unearned income honestly you should write more about -- [laughter] but instead i'm going to tell you why it is so much -- lynn especially why it is so different when a woman becomes the task commissioner in north dakota. i'm sure that my experience is nowhere near kent conrad's because when i became tax commissioner like, you know, being a senator, people invite you to come talk.

i'm talking about how great it is and what wonder for volunteers they are and how we need to write this site about cancer. there is a woman over here. she won't look at me and when you are the tax commissioner you say i am probably taking away your farm or doing something horrible to her. she won't talk to me, and so at the end of this talk she gets up and i say now i'm going to get it. she approaches me and she says, excuse me? i say yes. she says you have talked your skirt into the back of your pantyhose. [laughter] i gave the whole speech as you can imagine with not my better half showing. now i tell you that because i figure a malfunction will either get a good laugh or a lot of pity. i can see -- than i thought plan

d, i'll talk about my husband because he is gone viral. you watched our vice president who told him to spread his legs while the capital police first him. you saw that, right? what you don't know about my but my husband is he is very shy. extraordinarily shy and was mortified but he also is the funniest person i know. so i want to give you some examples of how over the years he has kept me humble and has been humble. when we were dating, living together, i was running for office and we always tell the story. i had to get married, i was living with my husband. anyway my friend was quite worried about this since she suggested that what we should do is get married so she turned to me and she goes why do you to get married? being kind of a smart mouth i said he is never asked me. she turns to my husband and says

why haven't you asked him? he said i'm afraid she will say yes. [laughter] so he did marry me and after the 2000 campaign we had kind of a rough ride so some of you, not because he told you this but i did run for governor of the great state of north dakota and did not get elected. i had kind of a tough time because i was diagnosed with cancer so my treat to myself was to go see tina turner in concert. right? tina turner and in front of her was joe cocker. i feel a little like joe cocker tonight. we expect you to be tina turner. [laughter] so we get to this fabulous concert and tina turner is in her 60's that year. she comes out and literally this little woman just fills up the fargo dome. i know you don't think that's a very big place but it is. she fills up the fargo dome and she starts dancing and i look at my husband and i say, darwin

when i am 60 i want to look like tina turner. he said, why wait? [laughter] it's a true story. [laughter] so i thought, maybe they would like to know my first impressions of washington d.c.. don't you know? i know you all think i have an accent and i think i talk like tom broke. i don't know why you think i have an accent? i thought you would want to know what it's like to be a -- in the united states senate right? you would want to know about that and it's truly very glamorous. my transition office is quite small, very cozy as we say as we are piling people into it and in fact we are waiting for kent conrad to kick up the chart so we can hire staff. [laughter] my office is small and certainly not dig enough to live in.

[laughter] i am wondering congressmen was it really cozy and homey when you lived there? was there room for the donny and marie poster? [laughter] well, i have to tell you i feel very well protected because we are right across from the capital police and based on personal experience they are at the ready. they are great guys and the other day, somehow, by magic someone tripped under my desk. i didn't do it. i don't know who did it but i can tell you that five guys show up along with her supervisor and i did what all good people would do. it wasn't me, honestly it was not made. so to kind of tell you how great it's been, couple of weeks ago i didn't know there was only one exit to get out of the building.

i don't know if you know that but you can get out so i'm in the basement coming back from the raburn building and wandering around, literally wandered around trying to figure out how i'm going to get out of the building to get home. i had on the stupid shoes so i took them off and i was carrying them around and then i realized out that there are security cameras so i'm with i ran carrying my shoes. and very glamorous as a united states senator. you might think you would get orientation. your orientation is here's your pin, good luck. put it on your lapel. i'm wandering around with the shoes and i'm thinking i'll bet the republican party is wishing that they had a tracker now. but really, i figure you guys asked me not because i'm funny but you asked me because you want to know if i actually -- [inaudible] you saw the ad, the softball at? i will tell you, i get asked all the time, did you really hit

that softball? and i ask evil, really? you are asking me that question? where else are you going to find a middle-aged postmenopausal red-headed woman who can hit a softball? and i will tell you this. when people think i do not have softball skills, i have the skills to hit a ball all the way to the fence and make it to first base if i really am hustling. [laughter] so speed is not my long suit that i batted fourth in my day. those of us who are baseball and softball fans know what that means. it's the long ball. so maybe that wasn't the reason why you actually invited me. you probably invited me not because you think i'm funny, but you think that you're you are asking yourself, how did this middle-aged red-headed democrat win a united states senate seat in a red state that the

president lost by 21 points? to you, i am like a unicorn. [laughter] [applause] you guys don't think i exists. [laughter] you just wanted to tell your family that you saw me in person and i am the last of my species. [laughter] in all seriousness, i do want to say this because i have some other prepared comments but i am so moved by your story and i want to say that when i was in the sixth grade, back a long time ago, people didn't really think that girls should have opportunities and i wanted to be an astronaut and the first woman on the moon. what went wrong there? it's called algebra.

[laughter] so it didn't work out so i announced in the sixth grade that i was going to be a lawyer and i got laughed at. and i got laughed at and laughed at and laughed at them by the time i went to law school almost half of my class were women. think about that change. think about the pioneers, the women who stepped up and took a risk and i want all of you young women in this room to think about that, think about how much courage it took to stand up for your opportunity and for the opportunity of over half of its population. without the courage of people like lynn and without her courage, you would not see 20 fabulous, talented women in the united states senate. we owe to women like lynn. we owe to you. thank you so much. [applause]

we will work extraordinarily hard to honor the work that you have done and i want to thank you all for being so kind and laughing at my jokes even though they were all a little lame. goodnight. [laughter] [applause] [applause] >> senator, i will tell you why we invited you. not only did we want to see a unicorn, we wanted to see fargo outtakes. you know, you are 100 seniority but you have an active history tonight. you are the first senator i've ever seen tell a joke about the lack of size in the senate office as compared to house offices. also, you have given a name and i think all of us should write this down -- she has given a name. we didn't pick it up at the moment to think about it.

she gave a name to the largest unnamed bipartisan caucus in the house or senate. she said it. i wrote it down. delusional procrastinators. [laughter] one other thing senator, that thing about the talking. do you do that on the senate floor? you will get a good laugh and get lots of pity and a c-span audience four times the size of the population of north dakota. [applause] and a few weeds and the joe cocker referenced it will be eight times the size of north dakota. i promise you we would keep this moving along and similarly grand and glorious biography, jason chaffetz of utah. [applause] >> thank you. it's an honor to be here and i was walking and and i saw jake sherman from politico. he said are you a little nervous? i said yeah i'm kind of nervous. i never get nervous but i am

actually nervous about this and he said think about this way. when you walked into this room you are really boring republican and even if you bomb you are still going to be a really boring republican. so thanks for taking off the pressure, jake. i'm here for many reasons but as you know republicans are trying to turn over a new leaf. we really want to highlight the diversity of our party. we think that the diversity is a strength in the republican party and so they sent me a white male conservative mormon from utah to >> to you tonight. it's the only base and constituency we have at this point so -- [laughter] actually they wanted marco rubio to come and fill this spot. they figured with a name like chaffetz, that is close enough to be a hispanic. you no? it has to fmat's and uzi in his name. he is hispanic, throw him out there. you laugh but i'm telling you. i actually was under the impression that maybe i was an

up-and-coming republican and then i -- it turns out they were looking for a way to save money on alcohol. invite the mormons. [laughter] the senator from i do -- idaho isn't here is he? [laughter] just making sure. [laughter] i am actually here with my wife julie, my only wife julie over here. [applause] i actually got into politics, i was in athletics and a placekicker on the byu football team once upon a time. wow. [laughter] i was in an actual football player. i was a placekicker.

there is a difference. they touch me in the throat flag that it was one i missed a kick in an indoor game and i blamed it on the wind that i thought, now i can do politics. if i can sell that i can sell politics. i'm fresh back from the republican republican retreat in as you know the congressional republicans held in williamsburg recently and when i was asked to go to the republican retreat i said, we did that on november 6, didn't we? we have already done that haven't we? i'm trying to fill the shoes of speaker boehner who sat here previously and was talking to major garrett before this event. he told me that when a speaker was asked to participate he just lit up. i said, how could you tell? [laughter] i am actually here to share the platform and i'm pleased to be here.

i am from utah. i'm not even going to tell this joke. this is awful. i am going right to the next one. i was supposed to say god's frozen people. she is from north dakota, god's frozen people. [laughter] thank you. i'm skipping that one to match. i don't have any good jokes. to those of you actually cover congress, have to say it's tougher for the reporters on the obama white house team than it is for you. you don't have to show up at a press conference an hour early for the president to give you a list of the questions you are going to ask. i should have skipped that one as well. [laughter] i had a hunch the president was not going to be your tonight. i didn't want to interrupt that wednesday night skeet shooting thing he's got going on. [laughter] actually we all know that the republicans are the minority in this town. it's quite amazing to hear the groups in this country that the

republicans are having trouble with these days, women, hispanics, the disabled,, catholics, newt gingrich's ex-wives and basically anybody who is never seen an episode of murder she wrote. [laughter] let's face it, the only advantage to being a republican in this town is if you get to park in a handicapped space. [laughter] i don't know why the approval ratings for the united states congress is so bad. we haven't done anything. [laughter] but i will say this to republicans. we just keep on trying. just the other day for instance there was a very high-level meeting, group got together and strategized the way the party can improve its image and become more cutting-edge, prove the coolness quotient of republicans i'm not quite sure that so many of these ideas are actually going to work. jim sensenbrenner for instance,

that is all i have to say it's a jim sensenbrenner right? i idoni that's a finish that joke. [laughter] the coolness quotient and jim sensenbrenner has never been used in one sentence at one time. he suggested that he should be guest starring on an episode of barney miller or a new eight-track tape out that he is marketing through wall worse. he figures that once his appearance on lawrence welk is their people there are people will flock to wall worth to get behind the republican brand. john mccain has a new fragrance out that can be sold exclusively at sears and roebuck, and lindsay, he just came running into the room and he said i endorse it, i endorse it. [laughter] you have to understand that we are dealing with a party whose hollywood symbol is pat sajak. there is not a lot of material

we can go with here. speaking of hollywood, there these are these days a lot of talk about the academy awards. i have not seen all the nominees so it's hard to keep track of them. i just keep them straight. i'm told that django unchained is not a dramatization of ron paul's newsletters. [laughter] life of pi is not a biography of governor chris christie. [laughter] but one that i did see is about the iranian hostage crisis. it deals with a group of american subjects, americans subject to abuse mockery and a mass demonstration by a furious mob of radicals. the call it argot. john boehner calls a tuesday conference. [laughter] i hear we may soon have another movie star and wishing to d.c..

ashley judd is considering a run against her own mitch mcconnell for a senate seat in kentucky. apparently her platform includes higher taxes, more washington spending and basically not posing any serious threats to president obama's agenda which has prompted the mcconnell campaign to label her as a -- i love that joke. i thought it was funny. i'm still having a few flashbacks to the 2012 election. i probably spend as as much time is anybody traveling across the country in support of governor mitt romney who i absolutely love and i have to tell you every once in while we would come across governor romney. he was a little wound down but all you do is pull that little thing in the back and crank it and he's good for another 48 hours. [laughter] oh gosh, okay. there is one thing the media did know that happened and it's actually a piece of bipartisanship with the

president and governor romney did spend one night with monopoly. you have to understand so little bit awkward when it came to picking their pieces. of course the press and present pick the battleship and mitt romney picked the car and the dog to go on top of the car. [laughter] these people play a little bit differently because the president insisted every time they pasco everyone had to give general motors $200. according to governor romney whenever you hit luxury tax you have to buy a tiffany's bracelet for calista gingrich. actually mitt romney was winning the game and out of nowhere chris christie came running in and give all of his property to to -- [laughter] i know you're waiting for me to make fun of the other party and there is nothing the mainstream media loves more than to poke fun at the democrats. [laughter] i do have to give president obama credit for one thing. just when we have all pretty

much decided the president is the most arrogant man in washington, he manages to remind us about john kerry. just as we decided john kerry is the most arrogant guy in town, then the president brings back chuck hagel. [laughter] after those republicans who would love to find some way to get back to president obama, i just want you to picture that first cabinet meeting where you have biden, hagel and carry all trying to speak at the same time. surely after for years the president will have suffered enough. i don't know what is going to happen in 2016 and i don't know what the democrats are going to do but for the gop side of the race there's probably no way we can do any worse than we did in 2012 and i am sure we will figure out a way to do it again. listen i appreciate it. it's a true honor to be here. i have sat through this a couple of times and i'm still new in this town.

but it really is truly an honor. the things that have been done by this organization and the people that have passed before you, pass before me and that will come afterwards i really support what you're doing and the support that you give, it's truly an honor and privilege to serve united states congress. i appreciate the role that you play. god bless you and may god bless the united states. thank you. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen we are finished. we have an after party and i want to give a round of applause to lynn povich. senator heidi heitkamp, congressman chaffetz and it is 10:02. that is what nbc does.

goodnight everybody. [inaudible conversations] >> having observed the steady improvement and the opportunities and well-being of our citizens, i can report to you that the state of the soul but youthful union is good. >> once again, in keeping with time-honored tradition i have come to report to you on the state of the union. and i'm pleased to report that america is much improved and there is good reason to believe that improvement will continue. >> my duty tonight is to report on the state of the union, not the state of our government but of our american community. and to set forth our responsibilities in the words of our founders, to form a more perfect union.

the state of the union is strong >> as we gather tonight, our nation is at war. our economy is in recession and the civilized world faces on precedent it dangers. yet, the state of our union has never been stronger. >> it's because of our people that our future is hopeful, our journey goes forward and the state of our union is long. the. >> military leaders told members of congress today that across-the-board budget cuts scheduled for march 1 would mean a total revision of america's

military strategy and lead to furloughs of thousands of workers. this senate armed services committee hearing on the effective sequestration is two and a half hours. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] ..

robert hail -- hale. vice chief of navel options, admiral mark ferguson. commandant of the marine corps general james davis, chief of the air force, general mark welsh and general frank tbrases. i would like to start by thanking all of your for continued service to our nation, and please, convey our thanks to the soldiers, sailors, airmen,

and marines at home and harm's way around the globe. they and their families deserve our out most support. some members of congress and congressman at a timers of the press had said that we should let sequestration go in to effect and it would be better to severely cut the budget than to work out the a deficit dereduction agreement that would require comprise. i could not disagree more. sequestration is arbitrary and irrational. and will not only weaken our security, but as secretary panetta said, quote, it's not just defense, it's education, loss of teachers, food safety, child care, law enforcement, airport safety. if sequestration and year-long continuing resolution go in to effect, the impact on the department of the deference will be -- defense will be devastating. for example, the army requested 36.6 billion dollars in the 2013

budget. but under the continuing resolution rules, it gets only the fy2012 amount of $30.6 billion. sequestration would cut an additional $6 billion. because the army has already spent $16 billion it would only have $8 billion left to get through the rest of the fiscal year, and more over, unexpectly high operational demands that require as much as $6 billion of the remaining funds be spent on overseas operation leaving the army with only $2 billion for domestic operation and maintenance during the next seven months. it is budgeted for $20 billion. so it would have 10% of what it needs for o and m during the

next seven months if the year-long sequestration go in to effect. that just one of hundreds of examples. we're going hear today that the military services are already taking near term actions to mitigate the impact of the continuing resolution and the impending sequester. for example, the department of defense has already instituted civilian hiring freezes, reduced or eliminated temporary or term employees, and deferred facilities maintenance and begun canceling or postponing the maintenance of ship, aircraft, and ground vehicle. if sequestration is implemented they begin to implement additional action between furlough from civilian employee, cut back in flying hours and other military training and cancellation of contracts. in addition, hundreds of the department of defense investment programs accusation programs,

and research development projects may become unexecuteble. even if the short term actions are irreversible if we act promptly, they'll have long-term costs and the longer postpones action, the higher the costs will be. for example, the army informs us if sequestration continues through the end of the fiscal year, two-thirds of the combat teams will fall below acceptable readiness levels. air force said it will not be able to support requirements outside of afghanistan. we'll experience significant degradation in the air drop and refueling capability. the navy said the george bush carrier strike groups will not be ready for scheduled deployments later this year resulting resulting in indefinite knit extension of the truman and eisenhower deployment with the resulting impact, the